DEUT754 How much economic help is one obligated to give to his fellow man? Commenting on the passage "Thou shalt surely open thy hand," the Rabbi say, Open Thy hand even a hundred times. They interpret the words "sufficient for his needs" to mean that a man's needs are relative to his station in life. Hillel is said to have provided an impoverished descendent of a once prosperous family with a horse on which to take his exercise and a servant to attend him. Sifre, Deut. ad locum. Also Tosefta Pe'ah chap. 4:10. When Hillel could provide no servant for him, he himself "ran in front of him for three miles." Ketubot 67b. Sharing one's possessions with others is not associated in Judaism, as it is in other religions and philosophies, with any denigration of the possession of wealth. Sin does not inhere in affluence, nor virtue in poverty. The Rabbis, however, do not recommend the accumulation of wealth as a goal of life and frequently stress the pitfalls which surround the affluent. Hillel warned his students that "the more property, the more anxiety." Avot, chap. 2:8 ... However, the Jewish tradition does not commend such generosity as would reduce one to indigence and mendicancy, as is apparently urged by Jesus (numerous citations omitted) and is practiced by religious orders both in the west and the East. On the contrary, the Rabbis taught that one should not distribute in charitable gifts more than twenty percent of his resources at any one time. Ketubot 50a, Mishneh Torah, Hilkhot Arakhin veHaramin, ch. 8:13. The Rabbis do not permit one to dedicate all of his possessions even to God, and if he has done so, it is not to be accepted. Arakhin 28a.

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DEUT769 In this instance the biblical law which was circumvented [by Hillel's institution of the Prozbul] was in itself obviously motivated by the high ethical principle of giving one's fellow man a chance to start anew and not to be crushed forever by a debt which necessity had forced him to assume. But the facts of life indicated that this highly ethically motivated law harmed the very ones it was intended to help. Hence Hillel decided that it was preferable to circumvent by a takkanah the law of the remission of debts rather than encourage the violation of the ethical injunction requiring one to come to the assistance of his fellow man. In this he was true to his fundamental understanding of the Torah. It was he who had said that the essence of the Torah is contained in the commandment, "Do not do unto others what you would not have others do to you." Shabbat 31a Hence, when he saw that in the changed times and conditions of his day, the observance of the ethically motivated biblical law would result in a violation of the biblical ethic, he did not hesitate to set the ethical above the legal.

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DEUT804 See [[DEUT713]] Deuteronomy 15:4 needy GREENBERG 74

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DEUT828 The question is raised whether there is greater virtue in one who enjoys the activity which the commandment imposes than in one who fulfills the commandment even though he does not get any pleasure in the doing of it. Some commandments cannot possibly be performed with joy, such as the burial of the dead. There are other commandments whose very essence is that they be performed with joy, such as the celebration of the festivals and observance of the Sabbath (this verse, Deuteronomy 16:14; Isa. 58:13). The rabbinic consensus is that the "commandments were not given us for our enjoyment" (Eruvin 31a). Hence, whether one derives pleasure from the activity prescribed by the commandment is a secondary consequence. This maxim of the Rabbis has legal implications which do not concern us here. The injunction to "serve God with joy" (Ps. 100:2) and the rabbinic concept of Simha shel mitzvah, the joy that should accompany the performance of the mitzvah, should be associated primarily with the joy that derives from the consciousness that one is serving God, and only secondarily from the joy which may inhere in the act itself. Hence, the performance of a mitzvah merely because one enjoys doing it, should not be classified as a religiously motivated act.

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DEUT835 See [[DEUT828]] Deuteronomy 16:11 rejoice GREENBERG 268-9

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DEUT837 See [[EXOD668]] Exodus 22:21 ill-treat GREENBERG 72-3

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DEUT858 … a literal application of the law is often impossible and more often would result in an injustice ... [thus rejection of] the literal meaning of the Biblical text [may be required] so that the law may conform to the over-arching injunction of the Torah "Righteousness, righteousness shalt thou pursue" [this verse]. This seems, therefore, to be a perfect halakhic illustration of Dr. Max Kedushin's insightful observation that the fact that an ethical value is not specifically referred to in a given rabbinic passage is not to be interpreted to mean that it is not significantly embedded in the passage. Kadushin, Rabbinic Mind, pp. 51-2. Ethical values deeply rooted in the conscious and the subconscious of the people determine their actions and judgments even when not explicitly mentioned.

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DEUT859 (Continued from [[LEV594]] Leviticus 19:17 rebuke GREENBERG 75). Something of this quality of meddlesomeness inheres in the commandments regarding justice and peace. Most commandments of the Torah are to be fulfilled when the occasion naturally arises for their fulfillment. Righteousness and peace, however, are to be "pursued," that is, one is not to wait until the opportunity to do righteousness and to establish peace comes to him. "Righteousness, righteousness shall Thou pursue" [this verse]. "Turn from evil and do good. Seek peace and pursue it" (Psalm 34:15). And Job says, "I was a father to the needy; and the cause of him that I knew not I searched out" (Job 20:16).

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DEUT884 The "they" [in this verse] is broadly interpreted to include the Rabbis [in their rabbinic enactments concerning halakha].

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DEUT922 The subordination of the Gods to magic is a universal characteristic of paganism. "Pagan religion even in its highest manifestation, is amenable to believe in magic" because there is "the ever present assumption of a realm of forces apart from the Gods." Magical rites that supposedly have access to these forces "are viewed as automatically effective, or even capable of coercing the Gods to do the will of the practitioner." Kaufmann, The Faith of a Heretic. New York: Doubleday, 1961; p. 40. The Biblical-Rabbinic tradition is unequivocally opposed to magic [this verse and two preceding]. Few things so clearly distinguish Judaism from all forms of paganism as Judaism's insistence that God is in no way subject to magic or coercion of any kind. The holy righteous man ever bears in mind that God owes him nothing.... (Job 41:3).

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